シャドーイングは発音を練習する最も簡単な方法のひとつです。正しく、そして楽しく取り組みましょう！
Do you already do shadowing? How do you do it? Tell your teacher.
As usual, make sure that the homework from Lesson 7 has been done before starting.
Let's get a baseline here. Does the student know anything about shadowing? Do they use an app? What other resources do they use? Most people are rubbish at shadowing or pay incredible (USD1500/month) amounts for services that are not much more than shadowing apps. We don't want people wasting their money! It can be done for free, and pretty much any resource is useful.
The point of shadowing is to learn intonation and pronunciation through mimicry. It takes away the need to think about what you are saying* (words, grammar etc) so you can focus on training the mechanism of speech and develop muscle memory.
Ask: have you ever tried to shadow in your native language? That can be very hard to keep up for more than a few sentences. Make sure that they understand that as you do the warm up.
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* Remember this point from the warm up in lesson 1: "The cognitive load of speaking another language means your attention is often elsewhere and so your pronunciation suffers."
Let's go back to our target from lesson 1. This is to check how well you monitor both yourself and your source. Listen to your teacher, repeat and give yourself a score. Focus on copying your teacher exactly.
FOCUS: Motivate your student! Anyone can sound like a great speaker. We all have the same 'gear'.
This warm up is to make sure the student is monitoring both you and themselves as they speak. Get them to listen, repeat and then grade their pronunciation out of 10 (you can score them too). If you have not already taught lesson 1 of this course, go back to the language section there and review the exercise.
We want to prime the student to the idea that pronunciation starts with listening. We also want them to start self-assessing their own pronunciation.
- This is a listen and repeat exercise.
- You say something, and then the student copies.
- You then ask them to score themselves on the target (10 being native speaker pronunciation).
- Then you give your score of their pronunciation.
- Work through the words and phrases.
Do this quick. It should not take more than a couple of minutes. It's a set up for the language section.
Ask your student to listen and repeat then score. Make sure they are copying how you sound:
- "Christmas" (2 syllables in English, but 5 in Japanese)
- "Japan" (Pay careful attention to the way they say that second "a" sound and the rhythm of the word—the student should be aiming to mimic you exactly.)
- "never celebrated Christmas" (Put a bit of energy into this so that you can check if the student will copy your intonation and stress.)
- "I've never celebrated Christmas in Japan before."
The point here is to test how long a sentence they can repeat. This is tough for learners, and should set the bar for how much they can actually repeat in one hit. Many people will struggle beyond half a dozen words or so. Make sure you point out that this should create a realistic expectation when they shadow content.
Let's look at three levels of shadowing:
- words;
- chunks; &
- sentences.
We will use this short of Barack Obama speaking to the UN about climate change. Follow your teacher's instructions.
We've picked a short extract of a speech by Obama, since he is a great public speaker. The full transcript is in the detailed notes below (click to expand), along with some additional notes.
Spend 10 minutes or so on this exercise. You will need to play the video four times.
- Play the short or ask your student to. Get them to shadow so you can hear how they do it. Give feedback. Did they nail the intonation? The fluency? The pronunciation? Did they try to copy it all or zero in on single words, chunks and/or phrases (they do a mix of the three)?
- Play it again, but get the student to focus just on key words they notice. It doesn't matter which, but they should repeat just a single word at least once, with a focus on copying it exactly. This time ask them to judge how well they did according to our rating system from the warm up. Give them feedback. (e.g. "international", "humanity" etc.).
- Play it again, but now do the same thing for chunks. Get them to rate themselves again. Give feedback. (e.g. "on a global scale," "political institutions", "takes time" etc.).
- Play it again, and focus on whole phrases and sentences. Get them to rate themselves and give feedback. (e.g. "It is going to be hard," "The thing we have going for us..." etc.).
If your student struggles to pick things out themselves, use the suggested words and phrases above.